People of Mwandama Millennium Village which is found in the country’s old capital city of Zomba wanted to share over K7.4 million at its bank account, and 6000 tones of maize worth K40 million among others.
However Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security Dr. Andrew Daudi said on Wednesday he discussed with the traditional leaders last Tuesday to rescind their decision on the matter.
“Other elements within and outside the settlement poisoned the minds of traditional leaders at Mwandama who now wanted to disintegrate the facility and share the spoils,” said Dr. Daudi
He said the villages constructed a large grain bank, which has over 6000 metric tones of maize worthy K40 million. 140 Malawi Kwacha is equivalent to US$1.
“Their success prompted a visit to the site by the UN advisor on Millennium Goals Professor Jeffrey Sachs this coming February but had their desire to destroy the facility worked this would have ashamed the Malawi government,” he said.
The Malawi cluster villages are said to have posted big successes in issues of health, food security among them for example they had a very successful harvest in 2007, producing crop yields averaging 5.5 tons of maize per hectare, an increase of 1100% since the start of the project.
Some villagers that were interviewed said they were told that they will lose all what they have amassed.
“We were told that government will take over all these and considering that we had paid through the nose and worked our lungs out to achieve all this we thought of sharing it before government take over,” said one of the traditional leaders who chose to remain anonymous.
In 2000, the nations of the world committed to the Millennium Development Goals that set time-bound and measurable targets for halving extreme poverty by 2015.
Since many countries in sub-Saharan Africa were crippled by disease, exposed to drought-prone climates and suffering from poor infrastructure among others there was a great risk that Sub-Saharan countries would not achieve the Goals.
As a result of these the UN initiated the Millennium Villages which sought to end extreme poverty by working with the poorest of the poor, village by village throughout Africa.
This was to be done in partnership with governments and other committed stakeholders which would be providing affordable and science-based solutions to help people lift themselves out of extreme poverty.
This led to the creation of seven millennium villages in Sauri in Kenya, Koraro in Ethiopia, Pampaida in Nigeria, Bonsaaso in Ghana, Mayange in Rwanda, Ruhiira in Uganda, Mbola in Tanzania, Potou in Senegal Tiby in Mali and Mwandama in Malawi.
